Hank & Chloe

by Jo-Ann Mapson

  His barn home loomed like a mansion on the small hill up from the main road of “Hughville,” as the press liked to refer to the compound. Back in the eighties, Hugh started painting the woodwork, but the passage of years weathered the exterior back to its original cedar, grayed now to driftwood. Woodsmoke poured out of the chimney. The curtains were drawn. Hannah whined. “I agree one hundred percent,” Chloe said, “but it’s always best to face the music.” She rapped sharply on the door.

  Hugh Nichols dressed Western—XXXX Stetson, Circle T shirts, and Wranglers bunched up over Justin Ropers—the genuine cowboy’s boot. Like a politician out to befriend the prairie, he never said a harsh word, just pushed with that big smile until his foe got the jitters and tripped up all by himself. His graying hair was slicked back, and the laugh lines in his face were etched half an inch deep, but they were hard lines that contained as much rage as they did laughter. No Rolex glittered from his tanned wrist, just an old Timex with a cracked crystal he swore was the most reliable watch he’d ever owned. He didn’t look wealthy. Two hundred thirty-six acres of the canyons belonged to him, though, deeded outright from his father, and he held no paper on so much as one square inch of it. Owed only the taxes, which for largely undeveloped land were manageable. T. S. Winters, Winter-Haven Homes, and the Stroud Ranch Company each had master-planned communities designed for his acreage down to the blueprints and miniature models, just waiting for Hugh Nichols to slip, meet with an unfortunate accident, or outright give in to greed. He sat tight, but he wasn’t silent. Any chance he could, he shot his mouth off about the land rapers and the lack of consideration for the working man, the few remaining wild animals, and topped the heap with a cherry—saving the environment. He got a lot of press. It drove the developers to maniacal measures. They came down on him hard, in the form of harassment from the county health department, sending social workers in to take a look at the tenants’ children, several private investigators working on finding dirt in his past. There’d been some threats. He’d been accused of defamation of character when he’d called the county supervisor a third-world toady—he’d run against him as a write-in candidate twice, and lost. While he likened his renters in Hughville to the family he never had, the press waffled back and forth, not quite sure how to see him. An activist working for the homeless seemed too good to be true, but a slumlord profiteering from the meager rents he charged, well, that was hardly news in this county.

  Hugh stroked the broad skull of his Irish setter, Gillian, who stood by his side. He invited Chloe in. “You unhappy here, darling?”

  She held on to the glass of iced tea he insisted she take and stood by the wood stove, a Swedish job, pretty red lacquer but not terribly efficient in terms of heat. “No, Hugh, just the opposite.”

  He stared at her, his black eyes looking her up and down.

  She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I pay you my rent in cash, so it can’t be that I bounced a check. What’d I do wrong? You going to tell me?”

  “Nothing, sweetheart.” He laughed. “I know you had a visitor last night.”

  She colored. “I won’t deny it.”

  “I have my spies out. They keep me posted. You want to stay to supper? Chilies rellenos. Stuffed and ready to go. Course, you have to fry them. My cook quit on me.”

  “Sure. I can do that. I’d like to.”

  He waved her toward the kitchen, then followed. Gillian stretched out by the fire, her red fur shining like oil paint. Hannah waited outside on the step where Chloe had left her; she wasn’t quite sure she liked Gillian, and Chloe didn’t want to find out.

  The chilies were stuffed, breaded, and ready for frying. The cast-iron skillet was oiled up, ready. It looked like Edith had gotten pissed off and left halfway through dinner preparations. Chloe wasn’t going to ask what about. She was going to cook up the chilies, unfold Hugh’s napkin, tuck it into his collar, and listen closely to whatever he wanted to say. “You mind if I switch on the radio?”

  “Hell, no. I Super-glued the tuner right to KIK,” he said. “Saves time. No sense arguing over music.”

  “That’s one way to look at it.” Chloe fried the chilies and sliced up a papaya somebody had left on the counter. There was a basket of eggs, too, from which she extracted whites for the rellenos. One or another of the families here kept a few laying hens. Unlike the rest of them, Hugh had electricity, a real refrigerator, and the electric stove. Uptown. She put the remaining eggs away in the refrigerator, set the spare yolks into a small bowl for Gillian. There was a half gallon of milk in there, some orange juice, bagels, plain yogurt. No beer, no wine. Good, if Hugh fell off the wagon, she didn’t want to be around. She served up the chilies on his pretty stoneware plates and unfolded the napkins. “Wash your hands,” she said. He did.

  They ate the chilies. Chloe took one, ate slowly, sipped the iced tea when her tongue felt like a live flame in her mouth. Hugh wolfed three, toyed with a fourth, tried to interest Gillian in it, but it was clear the dog had been hoodwinked by Mexican food before.

  “What do you think?” Hugh asked. “Can a dog be that smart?”

  “I think a dog can definitely be that smart.”

  “Seen Wesley lately?”

  “Couple days ago. He looks exactly the same.”

  “Blue plaid shirt and the old trout bolo tie?”

  “That’s about right.”

  “He ask you to marry him?”

  She smiled.

  “You should, you know.”

  “Everyone around here seems to want me married off more than I do. It’s a funny thing.”

  He looked at his mangled chili and mashed some runny cheese with the tines of his fork.

  “What’s the trouble, Hugh?”

  “I’ve pissed some people off again, shooting off my big mouth.”

  “Tell me something new.”

  His eyes were wary now. “I’m afraid this time they might come after me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing I can go into. Better you don’t know. Forewarned is forearmed. That’s all I’m going to say. Keep your door latched.”

  The chili sat hard in her stomach. “What kind of trouble are you talking?”

  “Probably nothing. Just best you keep your ears up. Now about this visitor. Anybody I know?”

  “Just a mistake I fell in lust with for about eight hours.”

  He chuckled. “Well, we’re all a little guilty of that now and again. Keeps life interesting. Say, he ride? Coyote hunt coming up. We can always use new blood.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then he’s not for you. Smart girl, Chloe.”

  “I think I’m a little too old to fit in the girl category anymore, Hugh, but thanks for making my day. Let me do up these dishes.”

  He didn’t argue. Went back to his BarcaLounger by the fireplace and stared into the flames. Chloe squirted the Ivory liquid into the sink and sank her hands into the hot water. Forget diamonds, Hawaii vacations and dinner out; luxury was hot, soapy water. She wished she could duck into the bathroom and take a shower, but would never ask such a favor of Hugh. That wouldn’t be fair to the others. She took showers at the college sometimes, early in the morning when the locker room was empty, otherwise she made do with cold water and a washcloth. Hugh was dozing now. She dried the plates and stacked them on the countertop where they’d been when she came in. No reason to get Edith more riled up, thinking another woman had been in her kitchen. Edith took good care of him. She worked as a nurse in the emergency room saving the lost causes and then came home to bigger problems. Before Edith, there were Valerie, Suzanne, and one other whose name she’d forgotten. Chloe shook some Science Diet into a bowl for Gillian, added the yolks, and watched the dog nervously grab a few chunks and race right back to Hugh’s side. That was a purebred for you, insecure and skittery.

  Hannah led the way home, her white plumed tail as good as any flashlight. There was a fair moon, too, three-quarters silver s
hining down on the earth. Chloe took her time through the back trails, hugging her arms to herself, craning her neck to make out the stars in the night sky. No matter what dire nonsense Hugh spewed, she had her job, a tank of gas in the Apache, a good dog, and one lame horse she loved—a full house. She spied the cabin through the small grove of oaks. A feather of smoke rose from the chimney. Hannah’s hackles went up. Chloe froze. He was back, that professor. In her house. He’d come back.

  He was asleep in her bed, his naked shoulders pale and childlike above the edge of the sleeping bag. She willed her breath to be quiet, took a few minutes to study him, taking off her jacket, hanging it on the peg by the door. He had the fire stoked up so high it felt as if they were braising in here. His clothes were folded neatly on the foot of the bed. Socks rolled up inside his shoes into perfect balls. Honestly. He’d come bearing gifts, apparently; laid out on the counter was a whole barbecued chicken wrapped in supermarket plastic, a tub of potato salad, a bottle of some pale wine, and a corkscrew—corkscrew wine—probably he knew all about wine, what went with what, what didn’t; cared about it, too. There was a package of chocolate cookies, a Stanley thermos still warm to the touch, an old soft blanket that looked like it might be cashmere, a new down pillow—that had to cost some major bucks—and a case of canned food for Hannah, tall cans of supermarket Pedigree. There was also a round of sharp cheddar from Trader Joe’s, fresh-ground coffee in a silver bag, some croissants, and a jar of hard, coffee-flavored candies. Jesus, was he always this hungry? He certainly slept like the dead.

  She stacked the foods away, folded the bags, worried about the chicken and the potato salad spoiling, finally wrapped them in several layers of newspaper, tucked the bundle into an old milk box outside, and put a couple of bricks on top to keep Hannah from investigating. When she shut the door, he was sitting up in her bed, awake, smiling.

  “Hello,” she said. “I don’t recall inviting you back.”

  “You didn’t.” He pulled back the covers. She could see his body now, much clearer than she had last night. It was nice enough to look at, not too hairy, lean, a little soft in places, but not where his penis emerged from the tufts of reddish pubic hair. Not there. There it was arced upward in definite hardness. She looked at it, then up at his face.

  “Will you come here?” he asked. He wailed for her answer, but didn’t once look away or down, held her eyes with his own. All the shyness was gone. “Will you?”

  Trouble on the horizon, as Hugh intimated—well, it never seemed that far behind. At any moment it could reach right out like the fist of God and shake up your life like it was a cheap maraca. Well, if you shook it yourself, you could make your own music.

  CHAPTER

  12

  If I get to pick when I have to die,” Chloe said, “now would be my first choice.”

  “Why?”

  She pressed a finger to Hank’s chest, turning the damp hair around her finger. “Tell me it gets any better than this.”

  “Let me show you.” Hank pulled one of her hands up behind her as if she were his prisoner. Her free hand splayed out on the mattress, keeping her balance. His weight anchored her naked body beneath his. “Don’t talk,” he said, and covered her mouth with his.

  After a dizzying number of athletic positions that each offered their own sweet distinction, they now lay across the thin mattress, heads leaning over the edge, bodies completely spent, lungs sucking cool air where it rose upward from the wooden floor. His cock was still inside her, but only technically diminishing and retreating millimeter by millimeter. Their tandem breathing slowed from ragged gasps to smaller inhalations with each passing moment.

  She’d begged him—Come in that way—I like it—need it was more like the truth—but few other words passed between them since she’d said yes. It was all movement. Her legs bent outward into triangles; his hand grasping her flank to draw her into him; both of them standing on the cold floor as he bent her over; her breasts filling his hands; the slow drag of his tongue on her shuddering thighs. The bedsprings’ sweet rusty song creaked like an elderly cricket. She’d asked him to push, harder; he’d countered—Don’t want to hurt you—but she hissed—Just do it, hurry—and he evolved from the gentle, cautious lover of the night before to the barely contained one of this evening. Then, at the last, he fairly pounded his orgasm into her. She could feel each thrust bruising her cervix. Wanted that. Wanted it hard and teetering on the edge of painful. Needed to feel each smack against her body to believe it was real. And once he quit staring at her and began to concentrate on his own pleasure, she felt unbridled, and free to move. Everything real dissolved into the hazy periphery—smoky wood stove, the abject howls of Hannah, displaced by a stern command to the floor, the memory of other hands on her body—Fats, Gabe, the barely remembered others, all gone, replaced with the rapid blossoming of white heat that began so small in that tiny knot of clitoral flesh Hank reached down to stroke. It wasn’t hard work after all, it just took the courage to ask, the willingness to face the fear of what she knew she needed. She came against the press of his fingers, a solid wave of rippling muscle and raked breath. Only afterward, when he released her arm, did she feel the small aches of strained, well-oiled muscles, the press of his hand against her damp flesh. She was a little ashamed then to have forgotten him so entirely, but he didn’t seem to notice. Kissed her neck and said, “Well, my goodness.” Made her smile.

  Now he pulled her close. They fell back onto the mattress on their sides, stunned heaps of exhausted flesh. Reaching down, she pulled the sleeping bag up over them. They lay quietly together, feeling the minutes tick off against their cooling flesh.

  “So where’s my movie date?” she asked when words would come out orderly. “Where’s my dinner out?”

  His voice warmed her ear. “Didn’t I bring you dinner?”

  “With enough leftovers to last until April.”

  “Now I suppose I’m to be punished for getting carried away.”

  “Hannah will get lazy.”

  “It’s my resolute intention to win that dog over to my side.”

  She smiled. “We’ll just have to ask Hannah about that.”

  “Chloe?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Nothing. Just the sound of your name. What’s your middle name?”

  She breathed into the pillow. “Don’t have one. Just the first and the last.”

  “Your birthday, then.”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Sex this good kills brain cells.”

  “Maybe slaps them around a bit. Seriously, I don’t know. My last set of foster parents insisted I pick a date, any date. So I took August thirteenth.”

  “Foster parents.”

  She tapped her finger across his lips. “Don’t try and fool me. You’ve probably been quizzing Phil Green like some sleazy game-show host. Know all about me.”

  “I might have asked a few things. Nothing quite so bad as you make it sound. Why August thirteenth?”

  She rolled away from him and stared up at the ceiling. “It’s a long month. No major holidays. Thirteen gets a bad rap. It seemed like a good date.” She yawned loudly, twice. “Breaks things up.”

  Hank pulled her hair back and traced her collarbone with his fingertip. “Can I take you out to dinner on August thirteenth?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a long way off. You might change your mind.”

  “I won’t change my mind.”

  “I might have plans.”

  “My plan is to keep you busy enough from now until then that I become your plan.”

  “Oh, really? That busy?”

  “Yes. Here.” He cupped her breast with his palm. She felt the sated flesh begin to arouse again. “And here.” He palmed her sticky thigh “Movies. Restaurants. Dinners. Et cetera.”

  She sighed. “Hannah and me. We’re both a little gun-shy.”

  “So we’ll go slowly.”

  “Will you tell me about what you teach?” she asked. “
I don’t know much about mythology. Is it dios y relampagos, like Constantina blames for all her bad luck?”

  “Who’s she?”

  “The wife of a friend of mine. She’s always making charms and crossing herself.” Chloe yawned again. “She’s going to have a baby.”

  “I’ll tell you a little bit.”

  She turned her head and his mouth was at her ear.

  “That owl outside your window? There’s at least seventy separate legends about him. Birds are never just birds in most cultures.”

  “How so?”

  “Depending on who you listen to, they can be considered a harbinger of evil or a blessing. Egyptians believe the vulture to be a sign of fertility, and the owl to represent stillbirth, or possibly death.”

  “Sounds like they got that one backwards.”

  “Maybe, but if you ask the Yucatán Indians, you get an entirely different response. To them the owl was a household figure, entirely female. Representing fertility. Power.”

  “Did it help with the dishes? I’m kidding. Go on.”

  “Shall we keep on with birds?”

  “Okay. Hawks, crows, cranes, ravens; I see them all from time to time when I’m out there riding on the trail. Tell me their stories.”

  He did, drifting into a sleepy lecture. Beneath his arm, she listened for as long as she could, lulled by his voice humming against her ear.

  They settled into sleep together—no false starts into the darkness interrupted by jerking muscle spasms, nothing but a swift kick from two tired bodies who had worked out the kinks of several years in a few hours. Hank swiftly entered a dream where a brace of white horses galloped in unison, pulling an empty chariot over a plain of clouds in a cerulean sky. Lovely animals. Sweet breath of timothy, shining coats, and impossibly curled manes over arched necks. He would go wherever they went. Just to follow like a wastrel seemed ambition aplenty.